We’ve produced hundreds of online videos for clients and learned many valuable video marketing lessons along the way. Below are five tips we believe anyone interested in marketing through online video should consider to help ensure a successful video marketing campaign.
1. It’s All About The Viewer
Make it clear to the viewer in the first few seconds why they should watch your video. Immediately spell out “What’s in it for them”. Online videos are a great way to engage potential clients but the key to their effectiveness is to provide immediate value to the viewer. Starting a video by delivering the bottom line message or offer at the beginning greatly increases conversions. Overview videos highlighting the greatness or coolness of brand are much less effective than videos that provide viewers with immediate value (in the form of specific content or an offer).
2. Keep the Core Message (very) Short and Concise
Keep the video to 60 seconds or less. Let’s face it, pretty much everyone in your target audience has a very short attention span these days. If you want a message or offer to be heard by a target audience it had better be delivered quickly. The statistics we pull from our video analytics reporting show video viewership drops off consistently and dramatically after 60 seconds. A beautifully designed and produced online video that’s more than a minute long will most likely not been seen in its entirety by the target audience.
3. Measure the Results
Like most all online marketing initiatives the analytics gathered from online video viewership can be of tremendous strategic value to marketers. Being able to measure important metrics such as video views, time viewed, traffic sources in aggregate or for individual videos helps marketers understand when a video is effectively reaching its target audience (and when it’s not). Marketers are always under pressure to show results. Detailed analytics about online videos helps marketers and determine which content, offers and locations are most effective for their video marketing initiatives.
4. Don’t Let Technology Get in the Way
The technology and terminology surrounding online video such as H.264, HMTL5, encoding and codec to name a few, can seem overwhelming and complex to the point where marketers avoid online video marketing projects altogether or simply use YouTube to host their marketing videos. Lack of branding options or detailed analytics are two primary reasons not to use YouTube as the primary host of marketing videos. Obviously, there is a built in audience at YouTube and it can be a good place to post videos to supplement marketing efforts. However, do not use them to host videos that are streamed on corporate websites, landing pages or in email campaigns. Using an online video platform can make deploying Internet videos simple and cost effective plus provides corporate branding options and access to detailed analytics not available through YouTube.
5. Reduce, Recycle & Reuse
In the right creative hands, producing innovative, compelling and effective online videos can be done at a low cost using a company’s existing marketing assets. Many people naturally assume the process of producing a world class online video requires an onsite film crew and elaborate production (and the associated costs). That’s simply not the case. Many companies have existing marketing assets like logos, images, photos and video footage that can be repurposed and combined with creative graphics and stock images or videos to create online videos. Just leverage the marketing assets that have already been internally approved and paid for to communicate your message and build your brand through online videos!
Want to learn more about video marketing? Sign up for our free Video Marketing Best Practices Webinar.